Very calm had her mind become in this long interval--very calm and very clear.

With the plummet line of intense thought, quickened by keen perception, she had sounded the depths of her heart.

She found places there--capacities for loving--intense yearnings--which had remained hidden until now.

The current of her life had hitherto run smoothly in the sunshine, its surface gleaming and in breezy ripples.

But the stream had glided from the open meadows and the sunshine, and the shadow of a great rock had fallen upon it.